1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of ecommerce including shopping through interactive media and pertains particularly to methods and apparatus for managing available inventory counts relative to consumer activity.
2. Discussion of the State of the Art
In the field of ecommerce, consumers may connect to the Internet and shop for products and services over the network by interacting with web-based services including web pages, order forms, and payment submission interfaces. Most online retailers identify their available products using a stock keeping unit (SKU) system to uniquely identify products and product variants for accounting purposes and inventory control.
More recently, shopping interfaces have become more flexible and interactive including enabling potential consumers to shop for products through interactive media including interactive video presentations. In typical systems, inventory management is handled separately from transaction processing. That is to say that inventory control and management processes are initiated only when sufficient data is available from transaction system accounting to trigger reordering or restocking of product to facilitate future demand.
Often consumers spend significant time and effort navigating an ecommerce site and initiating a transaction process only to discover that the desired product or product version is not currently available in stock resulting in a delay in normal service. Moreover, processing numerous transactions for out-of-stock products further complicates inventory management.
Therefore, what is clearly needed is a system for managing transaction activity and product inventory that more closely integrates the two processes and solves the problems mentioned above.